


Goodbye Miss Adler

by non_canonical



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A Scandal In Belgravia, Karachi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 12:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/non_canonical/pseuds/non_canonical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a seven forty-seven leaving Heathrow tomorrow at four thirty in the evening for Karachi.  It's not going to save the world, but it might just save a life.</p><p>(Spoilers for <i>A Scandal in Belgravia</i>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodbye Miss Adler

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [lbmisscharlie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lbmisscharlie) for the beta.

He woke with a warm hand on his thigh and his penis stirring in a sluggish half-life.  He held still – as still as he could under that intrusive touch – and he observed.  

Rumble of traffic in the pre-dawn hush.  Cool air trickling through the half-open window.  Waft of spices from a street vendor frying samosas and pakoras for the early-morning workers.  

Rasp of clothing on his damp skin.  Lumpy mattress.  Breathing from the pillow next to his – deep, soft, an erratic hitch on the inhale – asleep, or faking it well.

A stab of self-reproach: unforgivably careless of him to fall asleep.  Quite revealing, too, if he stopped to think about it, but this was hardly the moment for introspection.  Besides, he was tired of having his vulnerabilities examined.

Time to leave.

A barrage of noise, a distorted blare from the mosque opposite their hotel: the dawn call to prayer.  Her fingers tightened, holding him in place, muscles poised in the moment before flight.

"Is this how you want me to return the favour?" Irene asked.  Warm pressure as her hand captured his unwilling flesh.  "I could make you enjoy it."

Doubtful, but this wasn't his area.

Uncomfortable throb of blood in his groin.  Her face was a wavering blur in the not-quite-darkness.  He shuddered free, rolling over, rolling away.  Shock of cold tile against his bare feet.

"We need to go."

His fingers groped across rough plaster until they reached the slickness of plastic.  He flicked on the light.  He stayed there, facing the wall, while he eased the fabric at his crotch.  Pointless, really: she missed nothing.  When he turned back, he found her making no effort to hide her curiosity.

"The taxi should be here in half an hour.  You'd better get ready."

Irene peeled the sheet away from her sweaty skin.  No air con here.  He'd chosen the place for its proximity to the airport and the number of western guests.  All other considerations were secondary.

He strode to the luggage stand – two bags, battered, serviceable – and lifted the trolley case.  Flare of pain: abused knuckles protesting the strain.  Bruising, inflammation; hardly a surprise.  The human jaw was a solid mass of bone.

Hair a spill of dark silk; skin a flawless expanse of ivory.  Dark circles bruised under her eyes, but she wore them well.  Beautiful.  He could appreciate the concept, in the abstract, at least.

Quiet surge of relief – his body was quiescent again.

Suspicion in the quick, involuntary flick of her eyes from case to door, then back up to him.  Indecision in the quiver of her muscles.  

"That man."  She made it a question.

The man.  Adrenaline echoed through him; his hands clenched in spite of the pain.  Muscle memory: the heft of the sword in his sweat-slick palm, the eager momentum of the blade arcing towards its target.

No.  She wasn't asking about that.  Mouth pinching in frustration, forehead tightening towards a frown: confirmation of what he should have known.  Obvious.  This was about her.  Always selfish; always practical.  He couldn't bring himself to begrudge her.

"I couldn't get you out of there on my own.  He's taken care of everything."  Cold smile – she wasn't convinced.  "I once helped to clear his wife's name.  A debt of honour."

Her chin tilted upwards; her eyes challenged his.  "I pay my debts, as well."  

Oh!  She thought he wanted something in return.

Temptation to ask for what he really wanted – _Tell me about Moriarty_ – but that would leave him owing her, and he wanted to balance the scales.

He ripped open the case.  Stay focused.  He grabbed a dress and shook out the creases.  Cheap cotton, ugly floral print – a shame to spoil the aesthetic, but then, that was the point.

Irene circled the bed, circled him.  Still determined to have an answer.  He should choose which one to give.  Far better that way.

"It would have been a dreadful waste of a mind like yours."  It was an explanation.  It was the truth.

Not the whole truth, but he couldn't tell her the rest: that she quickened his pulse in a way that was so much better than arousal; that he should never have handed her over to Mycroft's tender mercies.

Guilt; regret.  Surprisingly normal, after all.

 _The joy of redemption_.  But those words had lost their sting.  Curious, the way that pain faded.

She glanced down: he was still clutching the dress.  She plucked it from his unresisting fingers, threw it onto the mattress.  

She took his hand.  A soft caress along the angry swell of his knuckles.  Then nails – sharp and hard – digging into the tender joints.

"What –?"  He flinched.

An increase in pressure.  Her eyes locked on his, studying his reaction.  Ah – she was still trying to pay him.

"It's not about the whips and the handcuffs," she told him, intimate and low, like she was confiding a secret.  As though this interested him.  "That's just window dressing.  Up here is where it really happens."  Her fingertips ghosted across his forehead.  "Don't you ever think about how it feels to be beaten?"

"I already know."  A dull burn; a weight sinking in his stomach.

Her words slipped inside his ear on a warm breath: "I could teach you to enjoy it."

He shook his head.  "I'm still not going to beg."

A shrug, a smile – of everything he'd told her, she believed that much, at least.  He slipped his hand free.

Irene closed the bathroom door behind her.  

He set his bag down next to hers: everything that Andrew Griggs would have carried.  Clothes – a preponderance of denim.  Toiletries – cheap supermarket brands.  A novel – thriller he'd picked up at Heathrow.  Perfectly in character.

He piled the fresh clothes on the bed, and sent his fingers skipping down the buttons of his shirt.  He slipped the fabric off his shoulders, and –

Rush of memory.  Stripping under the vastness of the desert sky, the headlights of the jeep glaring on pale flesh.  The chill of night air on sweating skin.  Tossing a match onto the soiled linen and watching the flames consume the fabric.  And the blood.  A surprising quantity of blood.

Dull bite of steel into bone, the crimson spray, warm across his face.  The first hectic spurts under arterial pressure.

Hard to breathe: constriction tightening round his chest, iron hard, unforgiving.

"Are you all right?"  Eyes sharp, probing, but her voice – there was something unexpected there, something that didn't quite fit.  Irene was fire and ice, not this.  Not warmth.

"Of course," he gasped.  Pulse throbbing in his temples, in his throat.

"You killed a man."  Fierce curl to her lips – not quite a smile.  "For me."  Lingering surprise, an echo of the previous night.  

The body, falling – blurring, and it was her face that snapped into focus.  Smiling up at him, reawakening to life.

The pressure on his chest relented.  A deep breath – sweet flood of air into his lungs.  Another, and his heart rate was slowing, slowing.

He had to hide his face.  Not sure what was written there, but it was more than he wanted her to see.  Still too new, the things she made him feel.  Fragile, but with edges that cut deep.

He turned his back, groping blindly for his clothes.  Halfway to the bathroom, he remembered the passports, still in his bag.  He kept walking.  She'd take them, or she wouldn't.  Of all the roles he might conceivably play, he wasn't going to be her jailer.

The water was lukewarm but plentiful.  His customary ablutions: scrubbing shampoo through his tangled curls; washing away the sweat of a night spent fully clothed.  Wary handling of his flaccid cock.  Then: scraping the trace evidence from beneath his fingernails; picking the hair out of the plug hole and flushing it down the toilet.  Not as thorough as he'd have liked, but the odds of being tracked this far were small.  Karachi was a big city.

Clothes piled neatly by the sink: cargo trousers, checked shirt.  A final inspection in the mirror.  He examined himself with the eye of a hotel clerk, an airport official, and saw only Andy, ready for a long journey home.

He stepped back into the bedroom.

Irene – dressed, case ready by the door – with one hand buried inside his luggage.  Getting ready to run, after all.  Rapid flick of her eyes – assessing rather than nervous – and she pulled out the passport.

"I'm going to need this, now your brother thinks I'm dead."

"You know?"  He crushed the unfurling sense of pleasure: a simple deduction, really.

"A limited number of people knew those secrets were in my possession."  Himself.  Mycroft, and a handful of his people.  Moriarty.  "Even fewer had any reason to betray me.  And only one would have tried to hide it from you."

He couldn't fault her logic.  Had followed the same line of reasoning, in fact.

"He was trying to protect you."  

"My brother really is becoming sentimental."  Apparently it was a weakness they both indulged.

"He wanted revenge, too.  I suppose you know how that feels."  Pointless to deny it.  "Well, Irene Adler will stay dead this time."  

Irene, the woman, a woman; names, labels.  Unimportant.

She flicked open the passport.  "Sharon Griggs?"

Man and wife.  The easiest way to obtain a double room in a Muslim country.  Or another disguise which let the truth leak through.  

She was watching him through narrowed eyes.  Let her wonder.

"Our flight leaves at eight," he announced.  

"Your flight," she corrected.  She tucked the passport away.

He'd suspected, of course.  That she had plans, resources; that all she'd needed was the chance to use them.

She was at the door now, the suitcase in her hand.  She stopped, and he didn't miss the way her knuckles whitened on the handle for a moment.  Flash of a smile, but it didn't engage the muscles around her eyes.

"You should be running," she told him.  It didn't sound like a threat.  "That's one game you can't win."  Moriarty.  A warning, then, not a threat.

She smiled again – for the first time, a genuine smile that softened her entire face.  A warning, but not a payment.  A gift.

When the door had closed behind her, he allowed himself to smile in return.


End file.
